He is a professor at Harvard University and a world leader in nanoscience.
He was also elected a Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, Medical School and Engineering School.
He has published more than 400 papers and is the inventor of more than 50 patents.
He is a 65-year-old Charles M. Lieber who, as a scientist, is at his best.
However, after two years in prison, the Charles M. Lieber has decided to leave the heartbreaking country.
On the 24th, he told the South China Morning Post that he would travel to China to seek job opportunities in the mainland or Hong Kong.
The victim of the“China Action Plan”, like many scientists deeply disappointed with the US, has been thrust into opposition by the US.
The United States used to be the world’s first scientific and technological power. After World War II, top talents from all over the world flooded into the United States, making a huge leap in the level of science and technology in the United States and standing at the top of the Pyramid of human scientific research, the natural science prizes that have won most of the Nobel prizes continue to attract more talented people as a result of being far ahead in many fields.
However, in the 21st century, the United States at the top of the scientific research pyramid, has been shaky.
Nature, an old academic journal founded in 1869, has a new 2023: China has overtaken the US for the first time in the number of papers published.
Prior to this, in 2021, the number of international patent applications in China reached 70,000, ranking first in the world for three consecutive years.
China is on the verge of overtaking the United States in spending on scientific research, attracting more and more scientists to work there.
While the Chinese lunar lander retrieved soil from the far side of the Moon, the American Boeing spacecraft dropped the two astronauts on the International Space Station and was unable to return.
The balance of power in science and technology between China and the US has begun to reverse.
America panicked.
Yet when Americans face panic, they are not thinking about how to increase their own power, but about how to start cracking down on China.
Conspiracy theories abound.
Back in April 2020, Republican Party Senator Tom Cottone accused “Chinese scientists and students studying in the United States of stealing intellectual property back to China.”.
Pompeo, the former Secretary of state, openly declared that “Chinese scientists, scholars and students spy for the Chinese government” and that the Communist Party sends 400,000 Chinese students into the US each year to “Steal technology”.
Deputy Secretary of State Campbell announced in June that Chinese students would be allowed to study liberal arts in the US, while international students studying science could be recruited from India.
The culmination of this series of china-phobia claims is the“China Action Plan” launched by the Trump administration in 2018.
The purpose of the China Action Plan is to investigate scientists and scholars across the United States who have links to China, or who the FBI considers suspicious, in order to combat what it calls“Threats to U.S. national security.”. To this end, the US government requires 94 regional jurisdictions to bring at least one or two cases against China each year to prevent it from“Stealing information from the US”.
By 2022, when the program was terminated, 88 percent of the U.S. scientists forced to“Investigate” by the FBI were of Chinese descent or ethnicity. FBI Cristóbal Ray has testified before Congress that as many as 2,000 anti-espionage cases involving China were investigated during the China Action Plan period, on average, it starts every 10 hours.
Ironically, after the termination of the China action plan, the so-called“Vindication” given by the U.S. government to the scientists accused of crimes was simply removed from the Justice Department’s website. By the time they were investigated, the scientists had already lost their jobs and their research projects had been terminated.
As a direct result of the plan, a number of researchers have chosen to leave the US to live and work in China or Europe after being accused of crimes“Related to China”.
The Charles M. Lieber is one of the victims of the “China Action Plan”.
In January 2020, Lieber was arrested by the FBI. According to the Justice Department’s website, Liberland received $158,000 in living expenses and $1.74 million in research funding from the Wuhan University of Technology Harvard Nano Joint Laboratory, lieber withheld the facts and made false statements.
But in reality, this is all about sino-us exchanges and cooperation in science and technology.
The Lieber case caused a stir at the time, with 40 scientists, including seven Nobel laureates, issuing an open letter expressing support for Lieber and challenging the Justice Department’s crackdown.
Finally, Liberland was 2023 in April to two years in prison, including six months under house arrest, a $50,000 fine and $33,600 in back taxes.
In addition to Lieber, at least 1,300 other American University Scholars, most of them of Chinese descent, were raided by the FBI during the China Initiative.
In 2018, Juan Ming, a professor in the Department of University of Tennessee, aerospace and bioengineering, was falsely accused by the FBI of being a “Chinese spy” and was arrested and jailed in February 2020. After much ado, in February 2021, Juan Ming was acquitted, but he had lost his lab.
In 2019, Emory University abruptly fired famous biologists Li Xiaojiang and Li Shihua, and shut down their laboratory. The FBI also investigated the two, li Xiaojiang was convicted of a felony for“Not truthfully disclosing personal taxes”.
In August 2019, Tao Feng, a professor of University of Kansas Chemistry, was arrested by the FBI and charged with felony charges including wire fraud and project fraud. It wasn’t until the 2024’s appeal was successful that they were acquitted. This professor Tao is more tenacious, after being arrested, also published more than 20 papers.
In January 2021, Chen Gang, a chinese-american Professor of mechanical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was escorted from his home in handcuffs by a dozen American agents. Chen Gang faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted on all charges of concealing Chinese links when he applied for federal research funding. After a year-long investigation and another false start, Chen Gang was acquitted but could no longer carry on his research.
Many chinese-american scientists are wary of pursuing sensitive research because they fear their work will be labeled a“Threat to U.S. national security.” Many research projects that had been expected to lead to major breakthroughs were halted or abandoned.
In addition to the mishaps from the FBI, ethnic Chinese scientists in the United States have at times been subjected to racial discrimination. In addition, exclusion and isolation within academic circles often make their work uncomfortable.
After more than three years of research into the China Action Plan, the hearts of chinese-american scientists have gone cold.
Thus, a talent“Great Escape”, staged throughout the United States. Not only did many Chinese scientists choose to return to the motherland, but even American academicians and experts began to leave the United States to settle in China.
The number of scientists fleeing the US has increased by 75 per cent in the past six years.
From 2020 to the 2023,3,876 Chinese scientists have returned to China. They include top scientists such as Shing-tung Yau, Rao Yi, Yan Ning and Gao Huajian.
At the same time, for many foreign scientists, treatment is not the most important factor. They are optimistic about China’s favorable scientific research environment. They include Yukio Sakamoto, the“Godfather of semiconductors in Japan”, and Shoji Fujima, the“Father of photocatalysis”, join French mathematician and Fields Medal Laforgue in Huawei, Danyll Povey in Xiaomi, and others.
The Charles M. Lieber told the South China Morning Post that when he was looking for a job, his main concern was to find an institution where he could conduct scientific research at its best for the benefit of all, and can best assist other researchers in their work. And China, has become his best choice.
Once upon a time, the United States spared no effort to attract talent to the United States, to achieve today can stand at the peak of technology. But now, in its gradual decline, the United States is trying to bring scientists to their knees with violence and fear, in the form of a crackdown on researchers. Little do we know that only a free research environment can bring about the rapid development of science and technology. Getting“Politically correct” into science will not bring scientists to their knees, but will hasten their flight.
It is not in a day or two that the United States loses its edge as the world’s high ground for talent.
The spillover effect of the“China Action Plan” will inevitably continue to cause the brain drain of the United States in the coming years, hitting the United States again and again. Who Let the United States was to lift the giant stone of self-interest?
Images from the network